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Formed by London-based best friends, Amer, Kalim and Josh, these guys have been playing in bands for years, but it’s in Strong Asian Mothers where they have really come into their own.

Speaking on their new track, ‘Animal’, the guys say, “Animal began as a jam between Josh and Amer in a rehearsal. We added some elephant shrieks, a pack of cards being riffle-shuffled, the sound of us opening a can of fizzy pop and saying “Aaaah” then sprinkled some words on top and it became the juicy, bouncy fella it is today.”

It’s a blend of witty lyrics with agitated electronics and trip-hop-influenced pop sensibilities, and just enough rowdiness to encourage you to get up off your feet, but not to start throwing glass bottles.

There is very little we know about Liverpool-based band, BlackPulp, apart from the fact they create illuminating indie pop that reminds us of a “rough around the edges” Foals, or a nodding Bombay Bicycle Club.

Their second ever release, ‘Vapour’, gives us a lesson about the effect girls have on boys.

Oakland-based Trails And Ways is lead by singer/guitarist, Keith Brower Brown, and drummer, Ian Quirk.

Born from a recent period of life-changing times experienced by Keith Brower Brown, Trails & Ways create unconventional songs, written about flaws, both on a personal, and global level, and they aren’t scared to offend.

Watch their quirky new video for ‘My Things’ below.

‘My Things’ is available for a free download on their Soundcloud page.

Francis Lung is the solo pop project of Tom McClung, former bass player of WU LYF.

Watch the impressive stop-motion video for the highly melodic ‘Dance 4 Sorrow’, directed by JamieAllan, AliyahHussain, JohnPowellJones, and Francis Lung, and which also features illustrations and characters created by fellow Manchester local, John Powell Jones.

Francis Lung will release his new EP, ‘Mother’s Son’ on 16 September and will mark the release with a headline show at The Lexington on 21 September. Tickets for the London show are on sale now and available here.

Birds With Fleas is an indie band, who base themselves out of New York.

We had a little chat with the guys. Read more below.

For those of you who don’t know you, tell us a bit more about Birds with Fleas and how you got into music.

Birds With Fleas is mainly me, Matt Siegel (guitar/keys/vox), and Spencer Karges (guitar/percussion/vox). We’re both sort of at the helm, but have been fortunate to have other musicians with us along the way.

Birds With Fleas started when I was a junior in college. I was a music major and had access to the recording studio that was on campus. I wrote a bunch of songs on ukulele and banjo that ended up forming our first album the campfire. I finished the album and went off to find people that could help me play the songs live. The first person I contacted was Spencer because I knew he’d been in bands before, that’s really all I was going on haha.

Spencer and I were in high school choir together for three years and we also sang in a few barbershop quartets together. Spence and I weren’t even great friends but I was desperate for help. It’s really funny looking back at it especially with how close we are now.

After I graduated we moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee and had a couple of great years where we were able to grow. This past January we moved to New York to make a real go at things.

Describe your sound in three words.

Melodic. Thoughtful. Fun.

We discovered you on Tradiio. Do you think free platforms, such as Tradiio, are making it easier for artists to expose their sound to the general public?

Definitely. Over the years we have used a lot of different platforms. There are probably more than a dozen ways someone could find our music online. So we’ve always taken the approach that we want to make it as easy for people to listen as possible, while giving them a way to support us if they can.

Tradiio is great because you listen for free if you want to, but it doesn’t shy away from asking people to support tracks monetarily in exchange for some cool stuff.

Where do you cite your musical influences from?

Growing up I listened to a lot of Motown and R&B because my dad loves that stuff, really anything from the 70’s. His favorite artist is Luther Vandross so most of those albums were played over and over again.

When I was younger we really only listened to music when we were in the car. The two records we played most in the car were ELO‘s greatest hit and The Jackson 5‘s greatest hits. I’ve probably heard those CDs 200 times each. If we weren’t listening to that stuff we were listening to the top 40 stations. It wasn’t until high school that I started paying attention to what my friends were listening to, that’s when I really started to find things that were resonating with me.

At first I started listening to things like City and Colour, Dashboard Confessional and Snow Patrol. All of that eventually led me to what I listen to now. Some of my favorite bands these days are Bombay Bicycle Club, Sylvan Esso, Daughter, and Local Natives. All of that has accumulated to what now influences our music.

We love new music at Indietronica. What new music are you listening to?

Lately the two albums that have been on repeat in our apartment are Sylvan Esso’s self-titled LP and Good Grief by Lucius.

We’ve invested in Birds With Fleas. Have you? Listen to more of their songs and support them at tradiio.com/birds-with-fleas/circle.

“Never Mean It” started in Robbie’s living room with a minimal bongo groove. We started laying down simple moody guitar lines, and Marlana came up with this flowing verse melody. Robbie and I started singing responses and eventually we created this swell of bellowing vocals that showcased the frustration within the lyric.

The new batch of Milo Greene songs came out of our living rooms. We shared ideas we’d been developing individually, and just sang ideas as loud as we could without pissing off the neighbors. Everything just kind of flowed out of us once we finally got off tour and had time to decompress. .Releasing demos is an experiment. Maybe these songs end up on the next record, maybe they don’t. But it’s nice to throw something out there to share instead of having it sit on our computers, never to see the light of day like so many songs have.”

Beaty Heart are a band from Peckham in South London. We caught up with them to discuss their infamous name and latest release, ‘Soft Like Clay’.

Where did the name Beaty Heart come from?

We have never actually told anybody why we came up with the name, mainly because it comes from a pretty lame inside joke. We like the idea that people can attach their own meaning to it.

You are a four piece, but three of you play drums. This is an unconventional set up. Tell us more!

Actually these days there is just three of us, and only one of us is playing drums at the moment. We used to be all about those bongos back in the day, and we used to hand out drums to the crowd at the filthy house parties we used to play, but people kept stealing our stuff, so we had to stop doing that.

Describe your sound in three words.

Wow so amazing.

Your new single ‘Soft Like Clay’ has just been played on Annie Mac. How does that feel?

Yeh it feels great, everybody on the radio has been really supportive.

Where do you cite your musical influences from?

We listen to a lot of music on the road, and it all filters through to us in some way. Lee Scratch Perry, Arthur Russell, Roots Manuva, Pharoah Sanders, and Floating Points could be a good start!

We love new music at Indietronica. What new music are you listening to?

Still listening loads to Archy Marshall‘s record which came out a few months ago. The new Kanye and Kendrick Lamar releases have been getting a lot of play too. Just been listening to the new Dean Blunt record, or Babyfather, whatever he calls him self these days, crazy bastard.

Polish band, Women For Hire, approached us a while back about their new EP ‘Time To Waste’, and we’ve had it on repeat ever since.

We had a chat with WFH to find out more about them anf the Polish music scene.

Firstly, great band name. How did you meet and why did you start making music together?

Thanks! We thought that the name of our band has to be easy to remember and that’s why we stick with it. We are brothers – producers Mat and Chris Malart. We have been interested in music since childhood. As kids we were making together our first songs. We had been playing indie rock when we got more into electronic music. When we made a draft of Time To Waste we felt we need something special, a female vocalist to fulfill our vision of the music we wanted to make. Then we started seeking the right person whose vocal will match with Mat’s voice well. So finally, we met Zofia Wypychowska aka Sofii on the Internet, she was searching for people to make music together too. Her vocal was proper, we found out that she’s into new music too and she likes the idea of a band. Sofii stayed with us and now our music sounds complete.

You are from Poland. Tell us more about the Polish indietronica music scene.

This kind of music is gaining more and more popularity in Poland and now it is in the fast developing stage. We have well-known bands like Fair Weather Friends, Kamp or Rebeka and fresh like Pola Rise, Young Stadium Club who make really good music and they play shows abroad too. You should definitely check them out.

Your sound is really unique. Describe it to us in three words.

Rough, warm and dense.

Your ‘Time to Waste’ EP has been on repeat in the Indietronica office. Explain the process of writing and producing such a great debut EP.

We had an idea to make an indietronic music driving by male and female vocals. At the very beginning we started to write lyrics, then we made music. We talked it over and tried to find sounds that will be different and modern. Drafts had richer arrangements than final versions of songs – during the process of production we took away the needless components. That what stays is essential. We were focused on the melody of vocals and compact form of compositions. All the records were made by ourselves at our home studio, including mix and mastering.

Where do you cite your musical influences from?

We listen to different music. We like electronic sounds from Disclosure to Burial, Four Tet, and Gold Panda. We also like and respect Tycho for melodies, Bombay Bicycle Club for very good compositions, Blood Orange, Phoenix, Jungle, Lorde or Foals, AlunaGeorge, GlassAnimal. So as you can see we have quite a wide range of music that we like and we are inspired by. Anyway, we try to find our own sound.

We love new music at Indietronica. What new music are you listening to?

Now we’re listening to Mura Masa, Movement, Shura, George Maple.

The lead track ‘Time To Waste’ really reminds us of the early Cut Copy singles. Think lush vocals over a simple bass line and delicate disco-merged synths.

Elderbrook is 21 year old London talent, Alex Kotz, who is starting to stack up a big following.

He has invited us to follow him on his pretty chilled musical journey with the video for ‘Be There Soon’. The video sees Elderbrook rejoin visual artist and director Lauren Gregory (who also directed the video for his first single ‘Could’), this time using pastel based animation set to a backdrop of 3D set pieces.

The track has been released via Black Butter Records and can be purchased on iTunes.

Aqualung (aka Matt Hales) has announced ‘Be Beautiful’ featuring the vocal talent, Luke Sital-Singh. The single is accompanied with an flawless, partly animated video directed by Scott Peters.

No longer strange, but just beautiful, ‘Be Beautiful’ originally intended as a “let’s get back together” kind of song took a philosophical turn in the verses and became more a rallying cry.

Watch below:

The track has been taken from the critically acclaimed ’10 Futures’ album (which features ten innovative songs that pursue an adventurous path with no precedent), and will be released on 4 September on BMG.